•Google seems to have won the race to bring near-field communications payments to North American mobile phones, with Android Nexus S phones soon getting the ability to act as a sort of digital wallet. As one might expect, users will be initially limited in terms of the types of payments they can use (a Citibank MasterCard or a pre-paid Google MasterCard) and the stores where payments will be accepted. [NYT]

•Here's an interesting analysis of why email services are so important to Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. [Royal Pingdom]

•Oh, look, Microsoft is already killing off Skype clients! The first victim: Skype for Asterisk, an open source PBX system. [Disruptive Telephony]

•Slowly and deliberately, Apple has put out a patch for the MacDefender malware. [PC Mag]

•Nokia may be falling behind in the smartphone race, but it's the number one vendor of mobile phones made of gold. [El Reg]